I Have a Lake as I Walk Through the Courtyard

Lin Feng narrowed his eyes. "According to you, what would constitute an enthusiastic attitude? Pretending to be busy watching from the sidelines, shouting slogans behind a few middle-aged women to be considered having the right attitude? Or should I just go to the delivery room entrance and shout out numbers? What's the difference between that and formalism?"

"After all these years of schooling, has all you learned been to be sharp-tongued and spout a bunch of fallacies?"

"His twisted logic is still valid! But you, Yi Zhonghai, what makes you think you're sitting here today?"

Yi Zhonghai's face paled at the question, and Liu Haizhong coughed beside him. "Comrade Lin Feng is right, Old Yi, you're just a member of the masses now, you should go down to the grassroots!"

Yi Zhonghai stared at Liu Haizhong in disbelief. Liu Haizhong calmly took a sip of tea. The Third Uncle covered his face with one hand, looking like he wanted to escape.

Yi Zhonghai angrily flicked his sleeves, picked up his teacup (a symbol of advanced worker status), and sat down next to Sha Zhu, still fuming.

Seeing Yi Zhonghai leave, Liu Haizhong stood up smugly. "Lin Feng! Although you didn't do anything wrong, your attitude was definitely not proactive! I still have to criticize you here!"

Looking at this guy, Lin Feng was speechless. Arguing with him was a waste of breath, so he simply sat down and listened to what he had to say next!

Seeing that Lin Feng did not refute him, Liu Haizhong smiled at him with satisfaction, as if to say, "Young man, you have a bright future!"

Liu Haizhong rested one hand on his teacup, looking at his neighbors in the courtyard. "The main reason I've gathered everyone here today is for one thing. What is it?" Liu Haizhong suddenly scratched his head, unable to recall for a long time, his face turning as red as a pig's liver.

Seeing the elderly man sitting next to him, a sudden idea struck him. "Why is the elderly man telling everyone something? Let's all give him a round of applause!"

Lin Feng almost choked on his breath. Helplessly, he joined the crowd in clapping. After the sparse applause subsided, the Third Uncle and Yi Zhonghai exchanged a glance and slowly stood up.

"Qin Huairu is in the hospital right now. The news coming back from the hospital is that her condition is not optimistic. She needs nutritional support to recover! Everyone knows what the situation is like right now. It's good enough for every family to have enough to eat, let alone nutritional supplements! So I discussed it with Lao Yi! This matter will have to fall on the two cooks in our compound!"

After the third uncle finished speaking, he looked at Lin Feng with a smile. Lin Feng rolled his eyes. So this was what they were waiting for!

"No problem! I'll take care of Sister Qin's matter!" Sha Zhu stood up, patted his chest, and looked like a righteous messenger. Lin Feng, who was not far away, looked at this guy and cursed him in his heart.

"Raymond Lam, what about you?"

"I'm not stupid enough to think I have that ability! Your steel mill has its own special kitchen, but our purchasing station only has about 10 people and we don't have any special kitchen at all, let alone any meat! If the Jia family thinks my lunchbox is good enough, I can bring it to her, no coupons needed, just 2 cents a lunchbox!"

"Lin Feng, are you even human?! You're charging 2 cents for a lousy lunchbox!"

Lin Feng watched as Jia Zhangshi jumped out, pointing her finger at the old woman. "I think the worst person in this courtyard is you! Your son's pension is a full 500 yuan, your own daughter-in-law is malnourished in the hospital, and you're still trying to squeeze 2 mao from me! Can't you even spare 2 mao? What do I owe your Jia family?"

Upon hearing the offer of 500 yuan, many neighbors in the courtyard became envious, and their gazes towards Jia Zhangshi changed.

"Can't you learn from Sha Zhu? You're both cooks, so why is there such a huge difference? No wonder he can be a master chef! And you're just a piece of junk!"

Hearing this, Lin Feng also got angry. "What's wrong with me being a nobody? Did I eat your rice? Did it bother you? Why is your daughter-in-law malnourished? Why was she in such danger? Isn't it because you, old woman, couldn't bear to spend the money and only took her to the hospital at the last minute? She was so pregnant, and you still made her do the laundry! How can you expect everyone in the yard to help you carry the burden when something happens? How can you be so shameless?"

"Her face is naturally big! Like a giant washbasin!"

"Hahahaha!" Even Shazhu laughed when he heard this.

Madam Jia turned her head and looked. "Xu Damao! What's it to you? Mind your own business!"

Yi Zhonghai watched from the side, secretly astonished. When did Lin Feng become so eloquent? His words were impeccable, and he could even counterattack from time to time! Seeing that everyone's opinion was leaning towards Lin Feng, Yi Zhonghai stood up.

"Alright, alright! If Lin Feng doesn't want to, then so be it! It won't matter if he doesn't have that lunchbox."

Lin Feng sensed the veiled sarcasm in Yi Zhonghai's words. "I really don't want to! I'm a bachelor without a wife, and you want me to take care of someone during their postpartum period? Am I supposed to find a wife then? What's wrong with you, Yi Zhonghai? You're a level eight craftsman, taking care of your apprentice's wife, and you still need to go around begging for money? Aren't you ashamed?"

"Fine, fine! Lin Feng, remember what you said today. If you ever have any trouble in the future, don't come begging to us! You can keep that lunchbox for yourself!"

"Tch! You want to help? You're lucky you didn't stab me in the back!" Lin Feng spat nonchalantly, and Yi Zhonghai sat down angrily.

The third uncle watched all this with a cold eye, seeing Yi Zhonghai make the final decision and stand behind the table blatantly lying.

"Everyone should learn from Sha Zhu; he's a great role model for helping others! Let's give him a round of applause!"

The neighbors in the courtyard clapped wildly, shouting "Bravo!" Lin Feng did the same, clapping his hands while inwardly cursing them as idiots!

"Alright, today's plenary meeting has come to a successful conclusion. Everyone, please go home and get some rest!"

Pshaw! That's it! You think you can outsmart me? What's shame? I lost it in my past life! Trying to morally blackmail me? First of all, I need to have some morals first!

After the meeting ended, Yi Zhonghai hurried to the backyard. "You saw what the old lady just did, didn't you?"

"I saw it!"

"and you?"

"This Lin Feng is completely different from the other young people in the courtyard. He doesn't seem to have any moral baggage at all. They've all studied for nine years, so how come there's such a big difference between him and Liu Guangtian and the others?"

Yi Zhonghai frowned as well. "Yes, I feel that he is not like a young man at all. He doesn't like being praised, nor does he get angry when criticized. He's more like that old fox Yan Bugui."

"He's not a steel mill, so our connections are useless! This kid's smarter than I thought; he didn't fall for our tricks several times! Looks like we'll have to use our brains more in the future!"

Hearing this, Yi Zhonghai narrowed his eyes. "Grandma, aren't we taking this guy too seriously? No matter how smart he is, he's still an orphan! He's just a cook, what can he possibly do? Why don't we get a few neighbors to coordinate and talk to Director Wang about what happened today, and see if we can put some pressure on him!"

The old lady shook her head. "I'm afraid not now. Have you forgotten what you did the other day? At least wait until your status is restored! Director Wang must be very resentful of you now, so you'd better keep quiet! There's no rush. He's still a person, after all. Let's talk about it after the New Year!"

"Alright!" Yi Zhonghai sighed. "Zhu Zi has been affected by him quite a bit!"

The old lady smiled. "Zhu Zi! As long as he has a wife, he has no complaints! You need to pay more attention."